


(It's Not) Real

by yopumpkinhead



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Injury, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 06:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17761358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yopumpkinhead/pseuds/yopumpkinhead
Summary: With memories of the Cage clawing at his mind, how can Sam tell what's real?





	(It's Not) Real

**Author's Note:**

> An old ficlet I posted to Tumblr and never published here. Inspired by @semirahrose talking about hallucinating powers!Sam.

Sam tells himself _it’s not real_ , tells himself over and over again, because he’s _out,_ they got him out, he’s safe, he’s not in the Cage anymore.

He looks up at the dent in the ceiling where his shoulders hit when the chains yanked him up, at the book he’d kicked to the floor, and whispers aloud, _it’s not real_.

His fingers brush the deep gouge in the table where Lucifer had jammed the knife, blade biting deep, handle quivering. _It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real_.

He tells himself it’s okay when Dean takes the beer from his hand, because Dean’s real, Dean’s solid, if it was another hallucination then where’d the can go? Dean puts the can down on the table with a reassuring _thunk_ and heads out to the car. _This is real_ , Sam tells himself, and follows his brother through the open front door.

The Impala’s keys are in his hand when he climbs out of the passenger door, stumbling a little because the ground isn’t where he expects it to be, but he doesn’t remember grabbing them. Has no idea why he’d’ve grabbed the keys at all, when Dean was the one driving. But they’re in his hand and Dean doesn’t seem bothered, so Sam tells himself _it’s nothing_ and makes himself keep moving.

Dean opens the door of the office building and Sam steps through, but it’s not an office building when he gets inside, it’s a huge empty warehouse and he turns, pleading silently _not real not real not real_ but no, the warehouse _is_ real and it’s Dean who’s not, Dean whose face bleeds into Lucifer’s, and everything comes crashing down around him.

_it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real_

It’s real, Sammy, Lucifer croons, and when he puts his finger under his chin and pulls an imaginary trigger, it’s all Sam can do not to mimic the motion ( _is the gun in his hand even real? would it matter if it was?_ )

and then Dean’s there ( _again_ ), but he’s right next to Sam too ( _not real not real not real_ ) and Sam can’t breathe, shooting Lucifer doesn’t help but he has to do _something_ , but nothing he does _matters_ because none of it’s _real—_

Pain, sharp and hot, spiking through his palm up his arm and it leaves him breathless for a second. Pain as Dean digs his fingers into the bandage around the wound in Sam’s hand, and the roaring in Sam’s ears, in his brain, subside long enough to hear _this is real_ , and it _hurts_ and for a second he’s back there, back in the Cage and Lucifer was right, he wasn’t out, not really, not free—

—pain spikes white-hot rails through Sam’s brain as Dean digs his fingers deeper, and Lucifer _flickers._ The world flickers, and for a second Sam can breathe again, Dean _solid_ in front of him in a way that’s different from a minute ago. Sam shakes his hand out of Dean’s grip and digs his own thumb into his palm, into the cut on his hand, ignoring the blood that wells up because ( _not real not real not real_ ) Lucifer’s stuttering, his image unable to hold against the blazing screaming pain in Sam’s hand.

_You make that stone number one_ , Dean says, and Sam nods, because there’s a solidity to his brother, a warmth to his presence, that hadn’t been there before.

_This is real,_ he tells himself, and prays that it’s true.


End file.
